


you build me palaces

by Liliace



Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: (again: he's missing an arm), Canon Disabled Character, Established Relationship, Fluff, Infomercials, M/M, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Not Captain America: Civil War (Movie) Compliant, Pepper Potts Is a Good Bro, Sam/Steve is a side pairing guys, Some Humor, Steve Rogers Is a Good Bro, Tony Stark Has A Heart, all characters besides Tony and Bucky have very brief appearances, so much fluff really
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-02
Updated: 2016-09-02
Packaged: 2018-08-12 15:44:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,578
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7940146
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Liliace/pseuds/Liliace
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tony engineers Bucky's metal arm so that it's removable, but Bucky discovers that not everything is simple when you only have the use of one hand. Tony, as always, wants to help.</p>
<p>In which Bucky and Tony are sickeningly sweet, Pepper is a genius, and metal arms deserve some led lights.</p>
<p>--</p>
<p>Based on that one tumblr post which claimed that infomercials were meant for disabled people. Not sure how true that is, but it inspired me to write this anyway.</p>
            </blockquote>





	you build me palaces

**Author's Note:**

> Title taken out of Hamilton (the song 'Burn' to be exact) because I'm definitely not obsessed with said musical.
> 
> Not much else to say, really, except enjoy! (Feedback is mightily appreciated)

Bucky doesn't like sleeping while attached to his metal arm. He doesn't say anything about it at first, happily suffering through the discomfort when the alternative is actually talking to Tony about it.

Even when they start dating, Bucky doesn't bring it up. He's let Tony look at the arm a couple of times by that point, but also requested that Tony not do anything to it – something with which Tony was all too happy to comply because he knew what forced experiments on you felt like.

After two months of dating, Tony finally acknowledges that they're pretty much living together already – Bucky still has his own room on Steve's floor of the Avengers tower, but he spends most of his nights at Tony's penthouse and his stuff has migrated there anyway. It takes another month before Bucky brings up the arm and alterations to it.

"Sure, yeah, I can do anything you want," Tony says when Bucky asks him. His grin is perhaps a bit too wide, but he can't help it when he's going to finally get to take a proper look at Bucky's arm, and Bucky appears to finally trust him enough to let him do so.

It's mostly the second point causing the happiness, anyway. Tech Tony has quite much of – but not enough, there could never be enough tech – but trust? That is something very few people seem willing to gift Tony, so Bucky's trust in him feels really damn great.

"Can you – uh, always when I'm sleeping – it kind of bothers me, so can you make it removable? But, uh, only by me and maybe you and Steve so it can't be used against me, and, well," Bucky requests, his explanation halting but very much sincere.

And again, Tony feels something in his heart throb at that show of trust; Steve being allowed to remove the arm he could understand as he was Bucky's best friend, but to include Tony in that? There really weren't words to express the happiness he felt.

But back to business.

"Of course," Tony nods. "I'll have to examine it first and determine how it's connected – if the wiring goes directly into your nerves or brains, or if there are chips there before that and how we can disconnect it all – and then I'll have to see how the actual arm is going to come off, as in how the plates work in relation to each other – but we'll find a way."

Bucky smiled at him, his thanks written in his expression; even now, Bucky didn't use words to express himself too much. Except with Steve, he was very vocal with Steve – Tony figured it was because he was used to talking with Steve, and either only felt comfortable talking with him, or forced himself to do so in order to not hurt Steve's feelings.

It was probably because he was comfortable enough to talk with Steve, though. In the beginning, Tony had hoped that eventually Bucky would feel comfortable enough around him to talk with him as well, but eventually he realized that there was no need. Bucky did talk if he had something to say, and Tony was more than able to talk for both of them to fill the empty silences.

Not that he did that all the time. Sometimes it was nice to lie in silence, or to listen to music, or to work on their own things in companionable silence. Tony usually talked to chase away his ghosts or to empty out ideas from his head, but he found that just being with Bucky did the former.

So Tony smiled back at Bucky, conveying that his gratitude had been received, before asking when Bucky wanted to get started.

The next day found the two of them in the workshop. When Tony ran his hands over Bucky's arms, however, Bucky pulled away and held the arm tightly to his chest.

Tony backed off instantly, raising his hands up to show he wasn't going to do anything.

"Okay, we don't have to do this," Tony said, carefully keeping his expression neutral.

Bucky shook his head. "No, it's – it's alright, just – give me a moment."

Tony rolled his chair even further away. "No, nuhhuh, not doing that. If you aren't comfortable with this, we aren't doing it. I'm not going to force any operations on anyone."

"Tony," Bucky frowned. "I'm never going to be comfortable with this. This isn't some situation where you're forcing me into anything, or even talking me into something I'm not sure I want. You're doing what I asked you to – you just have to give me a moment to, uh, get used to the idea."

Tony mulled it over. He was probably more hesitant to be forceful about anything due to his own experiences with having control taken away from him, so thinking about it all from an objective point of view… Yeah, what Bucky was saying made sense.

"Alright," Tony said eventually. "We'll start slow, 'kay? I'll just look it over like normally, and then I'll go in deeper."

Bucky snorted and wiggled his eyebrows, and Tony laughed at him. The tension on the room decreased drastically until barely any was left, and Bucky offered Tony his arm again.

From there it was – relatively – smooth sailing. Tony kept a commentary running like every time he looked at Bucky's arm and explained everything he was doing, new or old. He explained some of how the arm appeared to be working and eventually how the arm was connected, when he got to that point.

"I can get this off," Tony said when he was done, and Bucky breathed a small sigh of relief. "I can also alter it, if you want, or I can make you a completely new one."

Bucky thought about for a moment before responding. "Alter it."

Tony nodded acceptingly; it was completely Bucky's choice after all, and while Tony knew he could make a much more amazing mechanical arm, Bucky had probably gotten used to his old one and didn't want to let it go just yet. It didn't matter that it was a piece of a past that shouldn't have happened – it was also a part of him now.

It took Tony two days to find a way to safely disconnect the arm from the rest of the body, and then half a day to alter both the disconnected piece and the piece left in the torso so that it could be reattached and taken off at will.

He added a fingerprint detector to it, though, because Bucky was right; if just anyone could rip off his arm, it could be a problem. Steve came down to give his fingerprint – better to be safe than sorry; who knew if the fingerprint on Steve's files was really the correct one – and smiled gently at Tony and Bucky.

It must have been hard, watching the progress of your best friend's recovery. Steve never let it show, though, only ever being patient and understanding. Tony was pretty sure that Steve talked about it all with both Sam and Natasha, and Bucky probably realized it as well, but since Steve never complained or shower frustration at Bucky's progress, Tony and Bucky were happy.

Tony hoped he had been able to help Bucky, at least in some way. From how Bucky occasionally threw him a grateful without any apparent cause, Tony thought that maybe he had.

'I'm glad you two have each other,' Steve had said on one occasion, and Tony had been rather confused by that at the time. But now, knowing what difference Bucky's presence in his life had made, he figured that maybe his presence in Bucky's had had a good effect as well.

Steve chatted with Bucky while Tony finished the upgrade on the arm, and then they all tested it. Bucky went first, pressing his finger to the detector and then yanking at the arm. When it came off without any trouble, Bucky took a deep breath before calmly reattaching the arm, standing up, and then pulling Tony into a tight hug.

When he let go, Tony gave him a quick kiss before motioning for Steve to try next. Naturally, all their fingerprints worked – Tony knew his tech – and when Tony tried it with a wrong finger, nothing at all happened.

Both Bucky and Tony were very satisfied with the work. Steve hugged Bucky in congratulations and they decided to spend the rest of they just hanging out; Tony suggested a movie marathon, and so they migrated to the living room.

Sam showed up at some point. Tony was still pouting over the fact that Sam refused to move in with them. Then again, it might have been because Sam and Steve weren't ready to live together quite yet, and Sam moving to the tower but getting his own floor might bring some awkwardness into their relationship.

He was a regular fixture at the tower anyway, and neither Tony nor Bucky were surprised when Sam walked in and dropped down besides Steve on the sofa. Tony made some gagging noises when they shared a kiss, though, and laughed when Steve flipped him off.

"Hypocrite much," Bucky said, and Tony decided to get revenge by showing just how big of a hypocrite he was.

That night Tony and Bucky made their way to their bedroom feeling very relaxed. It wasn't often that they got to chill out for the whole day; if it wasn't some bad guy demanding Iron Man's attention or HYDRA soldiers practically begging the Winter Soldier to go after them, it was panic attacks for Tony or the return of some painful memories for Bucky. So needless to say, they enjoyed this break from their lives to its fullest.

Bucky didn't take his arm off when they first fell into bed; Tony got a small kick out of having the metal arm dragged across his skin. It combined two of his favourite things: high tech and sex. Bucky didn't mind, of course – Tony would never ask him to do it if Bucky didn't feel comfortable with it.

When they were done, Bucky sat up and removed his arm. Then he lay back down, making grabby motions at Tony before Tony scooted closer and snuggled up to him.

Neither of them liked sleeping too close to each other usually; it became too hot and constricting, and would cause nightmares rather than keep them away. Only when Bucky dreamt of the cryo chamber did they sleep wrapped in each other's arms.

But cuddling before falling asleep was fine. Even if one of them managed to fall asleep during it, the other wouldn't and could then move slightly away before going to sleep himself.

"Thank you," Bucky whispered into Tony's ear after a while.

Tony didn't bother playing dumb or making jokes; it was obvious what Bucky was thanking him for, and he didn't want to make Bucky feel bad for expressing his gratitude.

"I was happy to do it," Tony said instead and smiled slightly. "You can repay me by letting me put led lights into it."

Bucky laughed, his chest shaking under Tony's head.

When they got up in the morning – after a night of recurring nightmares – Bucky stumbled into the kitchen without reattaching his arm. He was completely awake, as the habit of waking up instantly both from war and working for HYDRA was difficult to shake off, but he was also tired.

Tony didn't get up yet then, letting himself lay in bed for another half an hour. When he finally made his way to the kitchen, Bucky was standing at the stove and staring at a carton of eggs angrily. There was a pan on the stove, and there was some egg yolk on it – not quite as much as on Bucky's hand, however.

"Bucky?" Tony asked, approaching his lover slowly.

Bucky turned around to glare at him before sighing and dropping the angry expression.

"I can't crack the eggs," he said, motioning to the egg carton with his egg mush filled hand.

Tony could connect the dots quite easily; Bucky only had the use of one arm, currently, and couldn't crack the eggs one-handed. He was also just stubborn enough not to admit defeat and go get his metal arm.

Tony wasn't quite sure what to do, though. Bringing Bucky's arm seemed too much like 'here, you can't do it like that', as did offering to help. But fact was that Bucky wasn't going to be able to do it, and letting him keep trying seemed even worse.

Bucky was the one who solved the problem, eventually, by walking to the sink and washing his hand.

"I'll go get the arm," he said, and there was a slight defeated hunch to his shoulders.

Tony didn't like that. Bucky should never, ever look defeated. Well, he sometimes did – like when the nightmares got really bad or he couldn't remember something Steve told him had happened – and Tony hated those times as well. He never said anything about it, though, only continued to support Bucky best he could.

Telling Bucky that he should always stay determined would be wrong. Bucky had every right to be tired of all the shit life kept piling on him, and while Tony hated it, he understood and only did his best to make Bucky feel better again.

That day Tony kept pondering on the morning's dilemma. Bucky clearly liked having his arm off, but at the same time there was a limit to things he could do one-handed. The solution was simple; invent ways for Bucky to be able to work without a second arm. It was the practical execution of that that made Tony pause and think about it.

Inventing different methods wasn't the problem. The problem was that Tony didn't know which of them would work the best.

In the end, he called Pepper, like he often did when he had an issue he couldn't puzzle out himself. Their friendship was still strong, even after their breakup, so he knew she'd be more than willing to help him.

"Hi Pepper, Peps, light of my life, ruler of my business," Tony said when Pepper picked up.

"Hello, Tony," Pepper responded, and Tony just knew that there was an eye roll involved. "I'm good, thank you for asking, what about you?"

"Yes, good that you're good, I was going to ask, don't doubt that for a moment – but I have a problem, so I'm not that good currently," Tony said.

"Problem?" Pepper asked doubtfully. "Is this a problem like when you couldn't change the battery in your chest, or a problem like that time you didn't have enough dip for your chips?"

"Neither," Tony said quickly, both to reassure Pepper that nothing life-threatening was going on and to keep Pepper from hanging up on him because she thought he was just bored. "It's a problem as in 'I want to help my' – uh, as in 'I want to help Bucky but I don't know how'."

Pepper hummed. "Just call him your partner, that's the best word. And keep going."

So Tony explained the situation to Pepper, omitting a few details – such as how Bucky was affected by the presence or absence of the arm, and other personal things that Pepper didn't need to know but probably could figure out on her own anyway.

"You could start with an Egg Cracker, and see how he reacts? You can just order one so you won't even have to spend time designing or building it," Pepper suggested when Tony was finished.

"What the hell is an Egg Cracker?" Tony asked incredulously.

"You know," Pepper explained, "those things advertised in infomercials – and don't you dare judge me, I know you watch worse things."

"Infomercials are jokes," Tony said, even more incredulous than before.

"No, they are not," Pepper said firmly. "They're just advertised to the wrong target group; my uncle is paralyzed from the waist down so he uses a wheelchair, and my mother got him a snuggie one Christmas. It's much easier for him to put that on than a jacket. Most of the infomercial products are meant for disabled people; like the one-handed egg cracker for people with the use of just one hand."

Tony actually physically stopped, feeling his worldview tilt. He had honestly never considered those products to be anything more than bad jokes that corporations wasted their money on for some reason.

But now, thinking about it, that made sense.

"You're a genius," Tony said before hanging up, sure that Pepper wouldn't mind.

He had an Egg Cracker to order. Like Pepper had said, it would make more sense to get something readymade than to design and build his own when he wasn't even sure how Bucky would react. Tony could spend that time looking at other designs for one-handed people and figuring out what was missing.

The package arrived early the next morning – Tony had paid extra for fast shipping – so Tony laid it out on the kitchen counter for Bucky to see during lunch. Naturally, then, they ate lunch in the common area with Steve, and ordered takeout for dinner, so Bucky didn't even notice the odd item until the next morning.

Bucky got up earlier than Tony, as usual, and reattached the arm immediately – he had done that ever since that first night, obviously having given up the hope of being able to manage without it. Tony got up right after him, though, and walked into the kitchen just as Bucky spotted the odd device in the middle of the counter.

"Uh, Tony?" Bucky asked carefully. "What's that?"

"It's an Egg Cracker," Tony explained cheerfully, walking around Bucky so he could pick it up. "You put the egg in there, and then do this, and the egg cracks – no fuss, no muss." He demonstrated the use of it – without an egg, obviously.

Bucky looked at him dubiously. "And why do we have it?"

"You can use it with just one hand," Tony said, and Bucky's expression froze for a moment.

Then he frowned unhappily. "I don't need help."

"I know," Tony said, rolling his eyes – gentle words might have worked better, but he was never good at that. "But that doesn't mean I don't want to help you."

Bucky stared at him for long moments before his expression cleared and he nodded slowly. Tony took it as acceptance of this weird gift he had bestowed upon his partner.

Bucky didn't take the arm off, though, and Tony figured that he'd wait to try it until the next morning – which turned out to be an accurate assessment. Tony spent that whole day designing new things to make life easier for Bucky, and observed Bucky's interactions with things more intently than ever before. And that was saying something considering how much he had stared at Bucky because of his crush until they had gotten together.

That night, as Tony was lazily drawing pictures on Bucky's chest, Bucky spoke up.

"About those things you're designing," he said, and Tony had a spike of fear that Bucky was going to ask him to stop doing it.

"Yeah?" Tony asked, glancing upwards at Bucky.

"Do you think it would be possible to market them? As well as whatever design you're doing for my new arm," Bucky asked thoughtfully.

Tony didn't even bother being surprised that Bucky knew he was planning a new arm for him.

"Yeah," Tony said, his brain running mile a minute. "Though the arm's design would have to be simplified – don't want civilians or enemies getting their hands on dangerous appendixes – and the materials couldn't be as high-tech in order to keep the devices affordable… But yeah, it could work. I'd have to talk to Pepper about it."

Bucky hummed. "You do that."

"Yeah," Tony said, pressing a kiss to Bucky's chest.

It was a good idea, and not just for earning money; surely there were many ways Tony could improve the lives of people with just one arm. And maybe just one leg. Yeah, he should definitely design some mechanic legs. Maybe he should stop by at the SI's R&D department and drop in some ideas. First he should talk to Pepper, though.

"I can't believe people call you selfish," Bucky murmured thoughtfully after a while.

Tony laughed. "I am. I just want to see you happy."

"I am," Bucky repeated his words as he linked their hands.

Tony ducked his head, hiding a soft grin from Bucky's view. "Uhhuh."

Sometimes Tony wondered at how happy Bucky made him. Usually, though, he just enjoyed it and tried not to overthink it. He'd been suspicious of everything at the beginning of their relationship, waiting for the other shoe to drop, but it never had. So now Tony was just determined to enjoy the moment.

And to make life as good for Bucky as possible.

"What about the led lights, do you think they should make it into the marketable version?" Tony asked, grinning when Bucky huffed out a laugh.

"No," Bucky said, "I think I want to keep those all to myself." His hand tightened around Tony, and Tony wondered whether that was an unconscious thing or an intentional statement. No matter, though; Tony wasn't going to complain. His partner was happy, he was happy, their friends were happy; life was good.

For now.


End file.
